


Light Bringers

by breeeliss



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien-centric, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Holidays, Hurt & Comfort, Lights, Little Light Zine, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9340217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breeeliss/pseuds/breeeliss
Summary: " It was hard to be disappointed by his father’s disinterest when he and his mother would spend entire afternoons picking out Christmas trees, testing all the lights, polishing off old ceramic ornaments from when his mother was a little girl, and affixing their favorite glowing angel right at the top of the tree. It was the best part of the holidays — better than all of the presents and sweets."Submission for the A Little Light Zine





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was my submission for the A Little Light Zine, a charity zine whose proceeds are going to support organizations helping Haiti in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. Go [to their blog page>](http://a-little-light-zine.tumblr.com/) to order the zine for yourself! They're open until Feb. 1st.

Gabriel always entrusted the Christmas decorating to Nathalie, who entrusted it to Adrien, who then always ran to his mother for help. 

She whispered to Adrien about how much of a scrooge his father was while they folded paper stars and globes to fit over the lights they hung along the grand staircase. She made Adrien pinky promise not to ever tell his father that, and Adrien dutifully kept it. It was hard to be disappointed by his father’s disinterest when he and his mother would spend entire afternoons picking out fresh Christmas trees, testing lights, polishing old ceramic ornaments from when his mother was a little girl, and affixing their favorite glowing angel right at the top of the tree. It was the best part of the holidays — better than all of the presents and sweets. 

But this year, Adrien shoved the decorations deep into the dusty corner of their attic so that he wouldn’t have to look at them, saving only the angel tree topper that he kept plugged in by his bedside so that he could watch it right before he fell into a fitful sleep. He wouldn’t put up the Christmas lights without his mother. Never. 

Nathalie ended up getting a fake Christmas tree. It was plastic and artificial, with lights that made Adrien sick to his stomach and made the house feel clinical and empty. 

He wanted the holidays to be over. He wanted to stop seeing the brightly colored shop windows, the parents bustling through the shops with armfuls of gift bags, and the mothers stooping down in the snowy streets to press kisses to the blushing cheeks of their children. 

He even guiltily prayed for Ladybug to stop talking so much about the impending holidays. As they sat on the Seine to watch the boats pass by, she rattled on and on about the new ornaments, Christmas candles, and long cords of angel lights she bought with her mother that afternoon. As lovely as it was to see her so animated, Chat Noir felt the overwhelming desire to bolt and bury himself in his covers so that nothing — not even all this holiday cheer — could find him. When Ladybug asked him what he was looking forward to the most, he merely forced a smile and said he couldn’t possibly decide. 

On the last day of school before break, when most of their classes consisted of forgoing lessons, crowding around each other’s desks, exchanging gifts, and gushing over holiday plans, Adrien simply couldn’t dredge up the enthusiasm. Nino, Alya, and Marinette were all crowded around his desk talking excitedly about their winter break plans, and he felt Marinette reach under the desk to squeeze his hand, as if she had noticed his silence. But if he looked at her, he knew she’d ask for an explanation he wasn’t sure he could give. He merely squeezed her hand back and spaced out of the conversation, keeping his eyes on the twinkling icicle lights hanging from the classroom windows. 

“Mon minou,” she whispered to him while they waited outside after school for his car to come fetch him. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

Marinette pulled his hands into her pockets because he’d forgotten his gloves, and the warm shiver that smoldered through his body almost made him feel better. He smiled as he watched her blink away the snowflakes that had stuck to her lashes and leaned in to kiss her temple. “Of course I would, princess.”

“I mean it, Adrien,” she insisted. “I don’t like to see you look so lonely. Not when you have so many people who love you.”

He smiled softly as she reached up to brush the snow out of his hair just as his driver pulled up to the curb. He wished he had something reassuring to say to Marinette — something encouraging that he himself believed — but there were only so many white lies he could tell her to keep her from fretting over him. Adrien wrapped his arms around her and muttered against the shell of her ear to wish her a Merry Christmas. “Don’t worry so much, my Lady,” he told her. “I promise everything’s fine.”

Adrien really wished he could focus on all the love in his life and be content with that, because Marinette was right. There was so much of it. He had Nino, Alya, his classmates, and he even had Ladybug who sat behind him in class everyday and snuck him boxes of palmiers whenever he came to visit the bakery. Their kindness and love shone brilliantly through some of Adrien’s darker moments, and he was forever grateful for it. But there had always been one person that shone brighter than all the rest — one person who only needed to look at him and press kisses to the tip of his nose to make him feel like the world was perfect and righted. One person, and she was gone. 

That evening, he lay awake in bed, watching the tree topper on his desk blink on and off and illuminate his room. The winter break enthusiasm led to a barrage of texts from his friends — Nino kept sending him his favorite Christmas music, Alya kept sending him pictures of all the holiday fanart submitted to the Ladyblog, and Marinette kept sending him adorable videos of kittens with Santa hats and puppies dressed like little elves. It all left him smiling into his pillows, laughing into his empty room, and feeling his cheeks warm at all the sincerity. But Adrien knew that his friends were preoccupied with their own families, and there was only so much space he could take up. 

But, at the stroke of midnight, he heard a knock on his window. He crawled out of bed and wrapped one of his blankets around his shoulders as he watched Ladybug dangle from the roof of his house, holding a huge shoulder bag and mouthing for him to let her in. 

Ladybug dropped the bag to the floor when he finally helped her through the window and brushed all the snow off her shoulders before she detransformed into Marinette. He didn’t have time to ask why she was here before she pulled out a small lighter and three tall Christmas candles from her bag. She smiled brightly, slipped out of her shoes, and slid across his wood floors with her wool stockings. “Let’s have a sleepover.”

Adrien blinked. “A sleepover? You mean...like right now?”

“Of course, right now, silly,” Marinette laughed. She pouted her lips, looked around his room, and shook her head. “But this won’t work. Your room isn’t Christmas-y enough.”

Marinette lit up all the scented candles she brought with her, and suddenly Adrien’s entire room smelled of peppermint, vanilla, gingerbread, and chocolate. Then she pulled out an armful of multi-colored Christmas lights from her bag and bounced on her toes. “Come on, come on. Find us some tape! We can hang these across the windows, and then maybe some on the banister on the second floor.”

He bit his lip and scratched the back of his head. “I-I...I dunno…”

“Please?” she grinned. “It’ll be lots of fun, I promise.”

It was impossible to deny Marinette anything, especially when she was standing there thrumming with so much energy. So he relented with a small smirk, pulled masking tape out of one of his drawers, and told her to take the second floor while he handled the windows. 

It took them close to an hour to get it done — Marinette had gotten herself tangled in the wires and needed Adrien’s help getting out, and Adrien nearly slipped and fell from the desk chair he was standing on to try to reach the tops of the windows — but they managed to get all the lights on and working, bathing his too-big room in warm, colorful lights that immediately made the place feel ten times warmer. He barely had time to stop and enjoy it before Marinette pulled on her favorite winter shawl, planted a fleece-lined Santa hat on top of his head, and broke out six DVDs, all with her favorite Christmas cartoons on them, some that Adrien remembered watching with his mother when he was little. 

They were curled up on his couch for hours, eating through all the baked goods that Marinette brought, reciting all of their favorite lines from each cartoon by heart, and laying on top of each other as they laughed, cried, and screamed their way through every single disc. Just when Adrien thought he was too full to move, Marinette jumped over the back of the couch, plugged her phone into the speakers on Adrien’s desk, and smiled deviously at him the moment BB Brunes started spilling into the room. She grabbed a flashlight from his desk and held it up to her mouth like a microphone. “How good’s your singing?”

Adrien scoffed, grabbed a hairbrush from his desk, and flipped his hair dramatically as he tapped the top of the brush to mimic a sound check. “Immaculate now that you mentioned.” He winked at her when the first verse of “Dis Mois” came to an end, and Marinette took the gesture as the friendly little challenge that it was. 

They belted out full volume to every catchy song on Marinette’s phone, regardless of whether they knew the lyrics. Adrien bumped into his desk and bruised his shins several times when he tried to slide across the floor in his socks to make dramatic entrances into all of the choruses, dissolving Marinette into breathless hysterics. Although, to their credit, they managed to choreograph a pretty impressive synchronized knee slide and spin right at the chorus of “ Tous Les Mêmes .” They even tried to mimic Stromae’s choreography from the music video before they started coughing and choking on their laughter. By the time “ Tombé Sous Le Charme ” had come on, they were collapsed on the floor, laying shoulder to shoulder, while Marinette desperately tried to keep a straight face through Adrien’s attempts to mimic the trumpet solo in the middle. 

The last note of the song signaled the end of the playlist, and Marinette and Adrien were both left on the floor in total silence sans their breathing. He looked to his left and found himself staring at all the small dots of colorful light dancing across her face and the warm light from the angel topper warming up her blue eyes, making them glimmer brilliantly in the dim lighting. When she caught him staring, she smiled back at him, lifted herself up on her elbow, and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Just wanted to cheer you up a little.”

Adrien laid there stunned for a moment, lifting his hand to press his fingertips where her lips just were. He was blushing up to his ears when he realized how absolutely beautiful Marinette looked in all the warm, Christmas lighting. Her entire face was glowing, and he could suddenly pick out every little charming thing about her from the dusting of freckles across her nose to the dimples poking out from the apples of her cheeks. All his love for her suddenly came swelling up in his chest at once, and he realized lying there against the cold, hard floor how absolutely lucky he was to have someone so perfect and wonderful care so fiercely for him. He only wished he could find someway to put his limitless affection for her into words. But, his Lady wasn’t going anywhere. He had all the time in the world for that. 

He grabbed her hand, rubbed his thumb over her knuckles, and pressed a long kiss against them. “Thank you.”


End file.
